Receive the latest local updates in your inbox

South Floridians who happened to be looking in the right place at the right time Sunday night saw one spectacular light show, likely a sporadic meteor. NBC 6 reporter Gilma Avalos has the story. (Published Monday, March 25, 2013)

Updated at 12:46 AM EDT on Monday, Feb 18, 2013

South Floridians who happened to be looking in the right place at the right time Sunday night saw one spectacular light show – possibly a sporadic meteor.

A sporadic meteor is basically a rocky object that comes from the asteroid belt, said Mike Hankey, operations manager for the American Meteor Society, based in Genesee, N.Y. The group logged 27 reports within about the first two hours of the event, he said.

Russian Meteorite Catches Scientists by Surprise

A 10-ton meteorite blasted through the sky above central Russia Friday morning. It triggered an explosion that sent fireballs and debris across a 200-square-mile area. Hundreds of people were injured, mostly by broken glass from the shock waves caused by the impact. Gordon Tokumatsu reports from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Feb. 15, 2013. (Published Friday, Feb. 15, 2013)

"This is a lot of reports to come in quickly," Hankey said.

Gauging by the reports, it happened somewhere over the ocean.

Meteor Travels Over 100 Miles & Activity On Radar

Did you see it in the sky Friday night from 7:30 to 8:00 pm? Dozens reported a bright yellow to blue light streaking over the Bay Area horizon. According to experts you weren't just tired from a long week, it was likely a meteor fireball. Chief Meteorologist Jeff Ranieri was able to fine tune the Doppler Radar and managed to pick up what activity was happening & how far the meteor likely traveled. (Published Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013)

"These fireballs are common," Hankey said. "It’s rare for any one person to see one more than once or twice in their lifetime. But on any given night, it might happen somewhere in the globe a few times in a day."

Hankey added: "People should not be scared of the sky falling or anything at all."

After a meteor exploded overhead near Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Friday, reportedly injuring more than 1,000 people, many people elsewhere in the world have wrongly thought that streaks they've seen in the sky, including planes, are meteors, Hankey said.

"We’re getting a lot more false reports," Hankey said.

But with false reports, the group tends to receive only one report describing an incident, Hankey said. If the same event is reported over and over in five or 10 minutes, then that’s more likely to be "a legitimate event,” or sporadic meteor, Hankey said.

In South Florida Sunday night, the Coast Guard found that the light streak vanished in an instant. The Coast Guard sent out a helicopter to check out a report of a flare near the MacArthur Causeway in Miami, but found nothing there, Laberdesque said.